1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for the on board determination of the passage through an apogee by a ballistically launched projectile through the receipt and comparison of a sequence of measured values vacillating or fluctuating specifically relative to the trajectory. Moreover, the invention is also directed to an arrangement for the on board determination of the point in time of an apogee of a projectile which is launched in a ballistic trajectory, through the receipt and comparison of a sequence of measured values vacillating specific to the trajectory.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
Measurements of that type, which are under consideration herein, have become known from the disclosure of U.S. Pat. No. 4,606,514 or from U.S. Pat. No. 3,332,642, wherein the change over time in the measured values of pressure or acceleration are observed on board the projectile, which values pass through an extreme value at the apogee of a ballistic trajectory, wherein the differential quotient thereof becomes zero in the apogee.
That type of determination of the apogee is always quite inaccurate, especially for gently sloped or curving trajectories, which do not possess a geometrically highly distinct apogee; and especially from those types of measurements, only relatively late after the actual passage through the apogee, along the leg of the already again descending curve of the trajectory, can there be derived the determination that the apogee has already been traversed. However, inasmuch as the mode of operation of an autopilot which is intended to steer a ballistically fired projectile after passage through the apogee into a gliding trajectory of predetermined geometry, which at a defined point in time along the ballistic trajectory necessitates a given spatial pitch position as a positional reference for regulating the flight, and inasmuch as the simplest obtainable positional reference represents the horizontal position of the longitudinal axis of the projectile at the point of the apogee, for attaining a precise function of the autopilot, an effort is made to achieve the precisest possible determination of the point in time for the apogee (with transmission of the momentary system position as a horizontal-positional reference to the autopilot).